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Free Picks: Lions Tour Rugby Picks & Predictions

The British & Irish Lions tour of Australia leaves London on Monday, but both sides have injury worries long before the serious action even starts. Richard O'Hagan considers what this means for your sports picks.

We’re just over a week away from the opening fixture of the
British & Irish Lions’ tour of Australia, a warm up game on their Hong Kong
stopover against the Barbarians. This year sees the shortest gap ever between
the end of the northern hemisphere season and the start of a Lions tour, whilst
for the Australians the fixtures come midway through a season that is already
taking its toll on their players.

Although the Lions named their 37 player squad back at the
start of the month, the true make-up of the party won’t be revealed until after
this weekend, when their Leinster, Ulster, Leicester Tigers and Northampton
Saints players finally finish their season. For that reason, you are unlikely
to find many - if any - of them in the 23 named to face the Baa-Baas. At the
same time, coach Warren Gatland will be watching those games through his
fingers, hoping that none of ‘his’ players get injured and ruled out of the
tour.

On that front there have already been scares, with Leinster
pair Sean O’Brien and Brian O’Driscoll struggling with injuries. The biggest
concern here is O’Driscoll, who is a shoe in to start the first Test at outside
centre if fit, but who missed Leinster’s win in the Amlin Challenge Cup last
Friday with a back injury picked up in the Pro12 semi-finals the weekend
before. At the age of 34 it seems that his powers of recovery, never as great
as many presumed them to be anyway, are no longer good enough to make him a
guaranteed starter every week, which in itself will create problems for the
Lions if he picks up knocks in the Tests.

The situation with O’Brien is less severe, as he already faced
stiff competition from Dan Lydiate and Tom Croft for the blindside flanker’s
berth anyway. However, losing a player before the tour even starts is never
good for morale and O’Brien’s speed over the ground may be influential on the
harder Australian surfaces.

The Lions’ travails are nothing compared to those of their
hosts, though. They already knew that captain David Pocock would be missing,
having picked up a season-ending injury a while back, but last weekend the
Super XV clash between NSW Waratahs and ACT Brumbies saw two of their best
players ruled out of the Lions series. Hooker Tatafu Polata-Nau and flanker
George Smith were both poised to start the first Test - Smith in place of
Pocock - and although Smith might make it back for the third game he will have
played very little rugby for two months by then.

The Australians also named a squad which omits two of their
best fly halves. Kurtley Beale’s absence was predicted, as he is receiving
treatment for a variety of personal problems, but leaving out Quade Cooper is a
gamble. He and the Australian management haven’t seen eye-to-eye since he
called them out during the last World Cup, but he has been in good form
recently and his omission means that the only Number 10 currently in the squad
(although up to six more players can be added to it between now and the first
Test) is James O’Connor, who has won only one cap in that position and who has
spent almost his entire Australian career on the wing.

With all of these problems in the home camp it is no surprise
that the Lions remain odds on favorites to win the Test series, with a best
price of 8/11 through Paddy Power. Australia are 11/8 at Bet365, which is more
attractive because, injuries and omissions aside, they will still be hard to
beat at home. Bet365 also have the hosts at 5/2 to win the series 2-1, whilst
those who look to back a 3-0 Lions win with their sports picks should remember that the last time that
happened was in 1927, when they toured Argentina, a place still to become a
world rugby power.